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Nisha Mal & Sonia Sharma

Asda boss speaks out on rising cost of food and how prices have been affected by war in Ukraine

The Government needs to do more to help tackle the rising costs of living, the chairman of Asda has said.

Lord Rose said the crisis comes at a time when there are a range of issues that need to be dealt with, including managing inflation and the impact of the war in Ukraine.

He told the BBC’s Sunday Morning show: "What we all now have to do is maybe change our behaviours. I will personally look at my own behaviour – what things I need and what things I don’t need.

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"The Government can’t sort out all the problems but the Government can do a few things. It could talk to industry. It could talk to the food retailers to make sure that we are cutting out every extra cost."

He called for "continuity across the four countries in the UK", adding: "At the moment there are not uniform rules about the disposal of waste. There are not uniform rules about Covid. There are not uniform rules about all sorts of things.

"The Government needs to look and say 'how do we make things simpler?'. The Government can’t solve all the problems. We together, all of us, need to think of thoughtful ways to make this better. At the end of the day, sadly, the consumer will also suffer."

Asda chairman Lord Rose would not predict how much food prices could increase but said "there is knock-on effect" due to the cost of raw materials and the impact of inflation, reports Hull Live.

Sunflower oil, wheat and oil prices have been affected by the war in Ukraine. Lord Rose told the BBC Sunday Morning show: "We don’t know what will happen to gas prices and whatever else and clearly that will be dictated by however long this war goes on for, but I am afraid there is knock-on effect for all raw materials.

"There is going to be a new level of costs for these raw materials and they won’t go down. It is a new high and that is something that people are going to have to accommodate. What we are now going to have to think about is, is that going to have a long-term effect on inflation because then will we have a wage spiral, or won’t we?

"The converse side of that is we could end up, if we have no growth in the business, having stagflation. They are both evil and the Government has got a very difficult and tricky road to navigate."

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